Interviewing 101: Analyzing Words in Speech

June 2014 The Fraud Examiner During a fraud investigation, there are many factors that make a successful interview. Careful preparation, timing, choosing the right setting and tone are all important aspects to consider before sitting down with an interview subject.

June 2014

The Fraud Examiner

During a fraud investigation, there are many factors that make a successful interview. Careful preparation, timing, choosing the right setting and tone are all important aspects to consider before sitting down with an interview subject.  Once an interview is in progress, however, some of the most critical work is just beginning, and it is during this time that a fraud examiner must be especially observant and focused. This article examines some verbal clues that can provide insight into the truthfulness of the interviewee.

 

Parts of speech

As detailed in the ACFE’s 2014 Fraud Examiners Manual (FEM), the words chosen by the interview subject can reveal “undetected tendencies” in the subject’s speech.

This principle applies to one of the most basic parts of a conversation: how the subject refers to him/herself. For example, when discussing the circumstances of the alleged fraud, an innocent percent will typically refer to himself as “I” – “I prepared the invoices, but I didn’t alter any of the amounts.” By contrast, a guilty person is likely to try to verbally imply some distance or “shared responsibility” through his statements. This means he is more likely to answer with “we,” as if to refer to a group, perhaps the accounting department, for example, as a whole – “we prepared the invoices, but we didn’t alter any of the amounts.”

As ACFE faculty member Don Rabon, CFE, president  of Successful Interviewing Techniques, explains: “Pronouns are very much like the sign post to what a person is saying.  [They] can be very critical for analyzing discourse, because in some cases people will refer to themselves in second-person pronouns, and, articulating themselves in the second person. 

“In some cases, the use of the pronoun "we" and "they" can be indicative.  "They" tends to be the most distant, psychologically, of all the pronouns.  "We" tends to show immediacy, which means an emotional or psychological attachment.  So, paying attention to those pronouns, can be excellent sign post to guide that person that's doing the analysis.”

 

Filling in the details

The use of pronouns not only gives clues about the culpability of the subject, it can also indicate whether other employees are involved in the alleged fraud (and possibly to what degree).  If the subject is constantly using “we,” the interviewer should ask follow-up questions to determine who “we” refers to, exactly, and ask the subject to be specific as to the involvement of those individuals. Such statements will need to be verified, but that process in itself will help establish the truthfulness of the subject and assist in covering all of the bases of the fraud examination.

There is also the issue of possessive pronouns. Consider this example from the FEM: “I got on my register at 10:30. I was working at my register when I was called away by my supervisor. When I returned to the register, the register was open and the cash was gone.”

Notice the subtle change as that statement progresses? The subject initially refers to his cash register as “my register,” but when referring to it at a point after which the fraud has occurred, it is now “the register.” “When an interviewee gives bogus statements concerning an event, he will often drop the possessive pronoun to shift the blame to an exterior force.”

The interviewer should also listen carefully to how the subject uses verb tense when recounting a story. As explained in the FEM, a person will generally use past tense verbs when recalling an event. If, however, he begins improvising, he is likely to change the tense at the moment the story begins a work of fiction. An example: “I finished my first shift, and then I left my register to help Dianne with some inventory. We come back and the cash is missing from the register.”

As Rabon notes: “There is what is known as the historical present, and what you want to look for is when an individual goes from past tense verbs into present tense verbs… when we notice that shift, past tense, past tense into present tense, it's a good opportunity for a question.”

 

Listen to the content

While evaluating pronouns, verb tense and other aspects of the subject’s speech, the interviewer must be careful not to overlook the underlying content. In cases of deception, the FEM identifies various “peculiarities of content” that fraud examiners should listen for and be mindful of during the interview. These include:

Unusual details: The appearance of quirky but believable details lends credibility to the subject. Fabricated statements rarely contain these types of descriptions.

Superfluous details: A subject who provides details that are not essential or even related to the recalled event are often speaking truthfully. A deceitful subject is so preoccupied with lying that he will excise this type of information from the story.

Accurately reported details misunderstood: When a witness describes details that he does not understand or comprehend, but that the interviewer does understand, it is likely the witness is telling the truth.

Related external associations: This criterion focuses on points at which the subject relates his particular experience with some personal or external experiences. When the subject makes a relationship between the event and something that has occurred in his life, he is likely being honest.

Accounts of subjective mental state: The subject who provides descriptions of feelings and emotions is likely being truthful. When a subject cannot provide such information during an interview, it is likely that the subject has not thought through his deceptive story very thoroughly.

Attribution of perpetrator’s mental state: The honest subject will often recount the perceived mental state of the perpetrator, suggesting what the subject believes the perpetrator was thinking or feeling at the time of the event.

Spontaneous corrections: An interview subject might often correct himself during the course of the interview, altering earlier details or events. When a subject does this, it is likely that he is being truthful. The deceptive subject wants to project an honest façade and does not want to correct himself because, in his mind, doing so would present the appearance of deceit.

Admitting lack of memory: This criterion is similar to spontaneous corrections. An honest interviewee will often acknowledge not remembering certain details. A dishonest subject, however, generally will not acknowledge a lack of knowledge about certain details because he wants to be as complete as possible.

Raising doubt about one’s own statements: A deceitful interviewee will almost never raise any concerns about whether his statements are absolutely correct. If the subject raises concerns about the accuracy of his statements, he is probably telling the truth.

Self-deprecator: If the subject provides any self-incriminating or personally unflattering details during the interview, it is likely he is credible. In contrast, a person who attempts to fabricate a story will not want to paint an unsavory picture of himself and therefore will not make self-incriminating or unflattering statements.

Pardoning the perpetrator: If the interviewee attempts to excuse the perpetrator or avoids “bashing” the fraudster, it is likely that he is being honest.

 

Keep the Clues in Perspective

It is important to mention that every interview subject is different, and as in most other behaviors, no one indicator of possible deception in an interview should be taken to mean that the subject is being untruthful. This is a point that Rabon stresses.

“I think it is part of a process to get to where we can make the determination, with regard to veracity,” Rabon said. “I don't ever take any one element -- a deception clue -- as definitive.  It has to be put into context with that one individual… to ultimately get to the truth.

“I think it is part of a process to get us there, but it's not the end of the journey.”

With that said, Rabon is quick to point out that analyzing verbal clues is still a critical skill that interviewers need to utilize, or their examination will come up short. “Because fraud is a human construct, interviewing is a human construct, and part of the interview process – whether it is looking at statements, or transcripts or, in real time – is paying attention to the words that people use, in order to articulate a process, or an instrument, or an incident,” Rabon said.  “And, so, if that individual has a certain goal in mind, which could be, in one case, truthful, and in another case, deceptive, the word choices that that individual can use… can be illustrative to that learned ear.”